Day 17, Year 2: Arrival in Suva, Fiji
Date: Friday, May 11, 2007
Weather Today: Clear Blue Skies, Winds NE 10-12 Knots
Temperature: Air 81 degrees F; Water 81 degrees F
Latitude: 18 degrees 07 minutes S
Longitude: 178 degrees 25 minutes E
Total Trip Miles: 1104
Location: Suva, Fiji

Exactly eight days to the hour. That’s how long it took for our passage from Opua, New Zealand to Suva, Fiji. The GPS reads 193 hours, but that is because Mark turned on the GPS before the trip started. Actually it took 192 hours, noon Thursday of one week to noon Friday of the next. Even with the wind against us the last day and a half, we averaged 5.7 knots overall with the GPS showing our highest speed as 9.6 knots. We were flying through that ‘squash zone’ and I’ll be just as happy if we never have to fly through one again. Customs, Immigration, Agriculture, and Health officials came out at 2:30 to inspect the boat and officially check us in to Fiji. We passed inspection, have taken down the quarantine flag, and are now ready to make our first trip to shore. We are in the Royal Suva yacht Club anchorage and hope to meet Colette and Jean-Pierre of Safina and Marie and Paul of Ranger for Happy Hour. Ohana Kai is also here, but they don’t usually come to Happy Hour since they have two young boys. We’ll have to see them tomorrow. I found it really amazing that all of us that left Opua at the same time, even a catamaran named Balsam that went past us in the Veronica Channel as we left Opua, pulled in here at about the same time. I assumed a catamaran would have beat us here, but they came in an hour after we did. All of us arrived within four hours of each other. Dave of La Vie arrived here yesterday, but he left a day before the rest of us.

Viti Levu is a mountainous island. From our anchorage we look one direction and see a busy shipping port and look the other way and see beautiful mountains. I’m anxious to start exploring, but we’ll probably take it easy this weekend and start the explorations on Monday. Today is Friday here but Thursday back in the US. Our grandbaby Sam had his first plane ride today and I can’t wait to hear how that went. Heather, Jed, and Sam flew to Washington, DC, today to spend the Mother’s Day Weekend with Jed’s parents. On Sunday, Sam will get to meet his only living great grandmother, Muriel. She is Jed’s father’s mother. When we go into town tomorrow, I’ll have to check out the phone and internet capabilities. I have already checked and there is no wireless internet here. Sure hope I can find an internet cafe where I can take in my own computer and make Skype calls. I’ll definitely have a “Gramma Attack” if I can’t talk to and see Sam.

It’s raining right now which is pretty much a daily affair here in Suva. It rains and then the sun comes out. This rain is welcome as it is helping to rinse off the salt. But it’s time to get ready to go in during the next dry period. You’re probably getting the idea that I don’t like wet, and you are right.

070511 Day 17 Viti Levu, Fiji–Arrival in Suva

Day 18, Year 2: Warming Up in Suva
Date: Saturday, May 12, 2007
Weather Today: Sunny and VERY Warm
Location: Suva, Fiji

It is warm here. When all of us were in New Zealand, all we could talk about was heading north to warmer weather. Well, we certainly have warmer weather and it is taking a little time to get used to it. I worked on the back deck this morning doing the laundry, and by the time I got the clothes hung and went back into the cockpit, I was exhaused from the heat. I took a break and then went back out and cleaned the dinghy so I could put UV protectorant on it. Again, when I was finished and got back into the cockpit, it took a while for me to cool down. After lunch, we both read for a bit and then we headed into downtown Suva. Paul and Marie of Ranger and their crew members, Sandy and Chuck were in the Yacht Club. Marie came over to explain to us that Paul’s daughter had emailed that Paul’s father has been hospitalized and is in critical condition. Paul and Marie are on standby until they can find out a little more, but they will probably be flying home early in the week. Chuck and Sandy are staying in a hotel on land, but they came to the Yacht Club to tell Paul and Marie that Chuck has decided to fly home early. He and Sandy were supposed to be here until the end of May, but it appears that our rough passage made Chuck have second thoughts about continuing to cruise. Sandy and her husband who died about a year ago were long distance cruisers and she has decided to stay here. She would love to find a boat that could use her as crew so she could stay out here a little longer. If Paul and Marie have to fly home, she will stay on the boat to watch things for them.

Mark and I then walked into town. The Yacht Club is right across the street from the penitentiary. You can’t see this when you are on the inside of the club gates, but once outside, it is very predominent. The walk to town is along the working waterfront, so that is not such a pretty picture either. Suva is a big city and it suffers from all of the problems big cities have, but we enjoyed walking the main street and strolling through the food market. It is by far the biggest we have seen. It was late on Saturday afternoon, so we didn’t see the market in full swing. We will certainly return earlier in the day and see what it is like then. We found an internet cafe and bought a wireless card that can be used in various hot spots around town. We’ll have to try that out tomorrow. We walked as far as a mid-town park and then headed back to the Yacht Club. We walked to the bus station near the market and decided to hop on a bus for the ride home. Busses are predominant here as there are so many of them. And every one is filled to the hilt with people. At least three people sit in every seat intended for two and the aisles are full as well. We were the first ones off, so everyone in the aisle in front of us had to get off before we could get out. It only costs 40 cents to go anywhere, so it is a good deal if you can handle the crowds. We got back to the club and headed for the showers. We then took a quick trip out to the boat to drop off some things and then it was time or dinner.

Chuck picked the place for dinner tonight. It was the Malt House Brewery & Restaurant. We drank Malt House homebrew and then had dinner. It was certainly nothing to write home about even though it had had a great review in Lonely Planet. The food was certainly okay, but not the most creative dishes in Fiji as stated in the LP guide. Tomorrow morning Paul and Marie and Mark and I are going to go to the Centenary Methodist Church to hear the singing and then I think we are taking the rest of the day off. We’ll just sit in the cockpit and acclimate to the new temperature.

070512 Day 18 Viti Levu, Fiji–Damaged Solar Panel and Stanchion

Day 19, Year 2: Sunday in Suva
Date: Sunday, May 13, 2007
Weather Today: Sunny and Windy
Location: Suva, Fiji

Today was a lonely Mother’s Day for me. Holidays are like that out here. You are surrounded by friends, but not by family, and that is a very lonely feeling at times. Thankfully, there aren’t that many holidays, so days like these are few and far between.

Mark, Marie of Ranger, and I went into town for the 10 AM service at the Centenary Methodist Church. We were the only “Europeans” there. I’ll digress for just a minute to explain that on the Immigration form that you fill out here, anyone not of African, Indian, or Asian background is listed as European, thus the reference here. The church service was much longer than we expected, lasting two hours, but the singing was beautiful and the time in the church gave us a special perspective on the culture
here. The first thing I noticed while sitting in the church was just how different the people here look from Polynesians. In a church in Tonga, most of the younger women would have had long hair wrapped into a bun at the nape of their necks. Here, most of the women have very short Afros. The men here wear sulas, like lava lavas we encountered last season. A sula or lava lava is a piece of material that is wrapped around the hips making a skirt. The men here wear formal sulas that are made of
linen and wrapped in a tailored manner. They then wear a dress shirt and a tie, and some wear jackets. Most of the women wear a type of pulatasi. In Samoa, this means two dresses. Basically it is a knee length dress worn over a long skirt. The pulatasi here are not as stylized as those in the Samoas. They are simply a dress over a skirt, not something made to go together as are those in the Samoas. The church service was two hours long and it was noticable that all of the children attending
were well behaved. We didn’t hear a baby cry until the last 30 minutes. It appeared that children over five were allowed to leave the sanctuary and go outside for periods of time. I’m not sure if anyone was watching them outside, but they always returned after a short time. Today’s service was presented by mothers. The regular minister was in attendance, but had nothing to do with the service. The choir was also all female and sang beautifully. The entire service was in Fijian and the only
words I think I understood were ‘savasava’ or savior and Jisu or Jesus. There was a mother and daughter in front of us that made sure they held their hymnals so we could see when it was time for the congregation to sing. At the end of the service, they gave us a very personal welcome and made sure we met the female minister from today and the regular church minister before we left.

We took a taxi back to the Yacht Club and spent the rest of the day on the boat. We both read and then Mark worked on a new system of raising the dinghy to hang at the side of the boat. We have been getting mixed reports about safety here and figure it is best to be safe rather than sorry. We’d sure hate to have our dinghy stolen. There is a catamaran anchored next to us with a number of different people onboard. Some went into the Yacht Club a couple of nights ago, but left the captain on the
boat. He was working on the computer when people boarded the boat. I guess they didn’t see a dinghy so they thought no one was at home. He was successful in scaring off the intruders, but this gives us all notice that things are not as secure here as we had hoped.

Paul and Marie on Ranger will be flying home on Wednesday morning. Paul did find out early today that his father is weakening quickly. Paul had a very frustrating time this morning. He tried to use the pay phones at the Yacht Club to call the airlines, but airline numbers are either 800 or 888 and neither can be dialed from pay phones. When we got back from church, we loaned them the internet card we had bought yesterday and they went into town with their laptop to find a wireless hotspot. Unfortunately,
the main hotspot was having “technical” difficulties, but they did find one internet cafe that was open and they were able to make their flight arrangements. They will not return until the end of the month and we will probably be gone from Suva by that time. Hopefully we will catch up with one another sometime while we are cruising Fiji.

Tomorrow we go to apply for our Fiji cruising permit and to see more of the city. Seeing the city on a week day will give us a much better picture of what things are really like in the city of Suva.

070513 Day 19 Viti Levu, Fiji–Centenary Methodist Church on Mother’s Day

Day 20, Year 2: Glimpses of Suva
Date: Monday, May 14, 2007
Weather Today: Sunny
Location: Suva, Fiji

Mark and I spent most of the day in downtown Suva and we both arrived back at the Yacht Club feeling like we had just watched a film from the 1940′s set in a very large city with a very diverse population. Somehow things here don’t seem quite real to us yet. When we figure out what movie we are “watching” we will let you know.

We took the dinghy into the Yacht Club around 9 AM. Paul and Marie on Ranger towed Colette and Jean-Pierre on Safina to the dock. Safina’s dinghy needs repair, so they hitched the ride in so they could leave the motor on Safina. We were right behind them and by the time we had our dinghy tied to the dock, the folks had come to take Safina’s dinghy to a shop for repair. Marie, Paul, Mark, and I then took a taxi to town. Mark and I went to the Ministry of Health to pay a $35 entry fee for us and for Ranger, and Paul and Marie went downtown to get bus tickets for leaving Suva tomorrow. We paid our Ministry of Health fees and then walked through downtown, stopped at the Fiji Visitor Center, and then traveled on through town to the Government Center. Our next stop was there at the Ministry of Fijian Affairs. We found our way to the Native Land Trust Building where we hoped to secure a cruising permit for visiting all islands in Fiji. We didn’t get that, but we did a permit to cruise all islands except those in the Lau Group. This is a group of islands to the east where the people still live a very traditional life style. In order to get a permit to visit there, we were told that we needed to go to the Lau Provincial Council Office in a different part of town. So off we went. We walked through the back streets, visited the Roman Catholic Cathedral, one of Suva’s prominent landmarks, made a stop at the internet cafe, and then went to the Lau Provincial Council Office. The woman there told us that we could get a permit but that we first had to go to the police station to get an official clearance. Of course, the police station was back the way we had just come, so we backtracked to the police station and filled out the forms for clearance. We had to pay $45 and will have to wait 10 working days for the clearance, but we are making progress. We have to write a formal request to submit to the Provincial Office, but once that is done, we should get our permit. We called it a successful day and returned to the Yacht Club via bus.

Our stop at the internet cafe was to catch up on finances and to call our daughter and wish her a Happy Mother’s Day. She is visiting with Jed’s parents in DC and we got to talk to Jed, and to Marti and Donald as well. Grandma and Grandpa Goldstone assure us that our grandbaby is the most beautiful and most alert baby in the entire world. I’m sure they are right about that! He had a great plane ride to DC from Massachusetts and seems to be enjoying the hot weather in our nation’s capital.

Now for the glimpses of Suva. It is a big city and it reminds us very much of parts of Panama City. The shopping area is bustling but a little run down. As in the market area of Panama City, there is no continuity in architecture. Here there are old colonial style buildings standing next to modern buildings. The population is very diverse, with the Indo-Fijian influence everywhere. There are many shops devoted to selling Indian saris next to shops selling Fijian sulas. The smell of curry is in the air and like New York City, you have to be on guard at all times. Most people are just friendly but some are there to hustle you.

As we were leaving the Yacht Club, Paul and Marie were coming in. They are leaving on a bus at noon tomorrow to head to the airport in Nadi and they were delivering the contents of their freezer to the little restaurant at the club. They are going to keep their frozen food for them so they can turn off the refrigerator and freezer while they are gone. We are keeping most of their refrigerator contents, and what we couldn’t fit into ours was distributed among Safina and Scott Free II. Donna and Jerry on Scott Free II arrived during the night after hand steering for seven days. I’m sure they have never been so glad to reach a port. Paul and Marie stayed for dinner. They supplied the fish, freshly caught on their way in. We had a delightful evening with them. We will still be here waiting for our Lau permit when they return, so we hope to be able to do some of our Fiji cruising together. Mark and I plan to spend the next couple of days more seriously planning our Fiji cruise. With over 300 islands as possibilities, we have to narrow down the possible ports. Now that we know we will be here for the next couple of weeks, we can settle into a routine of boat maintenance and cruise planning. We can also do a little exploring on the island of Viti Levu. Bus service is great and cheap, so we might travel across the island to see what’s on the other side.

070514 Day 20 Viti Levu, Fiji–Glimpses of Suva

Day 21, Year 2: Making New Friends
Date: Tuesday, May 15, 2007
Weather Today: Sunny Again
Location: Suva, Fiji

Judy’s Day: cutting Mark’s hair, going ashore to take a shower, saying goodbye to Ranger, doing laundry by hand, defrosting the freezer, making ratatoulle with veggies given to us by Ranger . . .

Mark’s Day: getting his hair cut, going ashore to take a shower, saying goodbye to Ranger, going to town to take the bent stanchion for repair, taking a bus to nearby Lami to go to the chandlery, rechaulking a starboard chainplate . . .

That just about sums it up for today except for our dinner aboard S/V Serannity. When we went to shore this this morning to take showers, we met Ann and Lew. Lew needed some help getting getting a gas tank into his dinghy. Mark and I were nearby and Mark went to help. We talked for a few minutes and found that Ann and Lew were leaving Suva tomorrow morning for Vuda Point on the other side of Viti Levu to leave their boat there while traveling home to the US. Ann explained that she was going home for a “grandmother hit” and we instantly became friends. She invited us to Serannity for dinner tonight and we accepted. We just got home from dinner and we had a delightful time. Actually, Ann and Lew will not be leaving tomorrow morning as previously planned as the Yacht Club has given them a good deal on leaving the boat here. So we will be seeing more of them before they fly home next Monday. Ann was a special education teacher in upper New York state and Lew was in construction. They retired in the late 1990′s and cruised the Caribbean, the north coast of South America, eastern Mexico, and Belize before going through the Panama Canal to the Marquesas, Tahiti, and then up to Christmas Island and Kiribati. They arrived here from Kiribati shortly before we arrived from New Zealand. Evidently Mark’s theory that you can’t get two teachers together without talking about education is correct. As dinner progressed, we got further and further into conversations about education. We also enjoyed touring their boat and learning of their adventures. We invited them to have dinner on Windbird on Friday night, so we will learn even more about each other then. Ann and Lew will be going to New Zealand at the end of this season, but it is possible that they will be joining the Sail Indonesia Rally in Darwin, Australia in July of 2008. If so, we will see them again then.

Today Mark was able to buy a replacement winch handle for one of the two that we lost on our way here. He also bought a cam-cleat so we can cleat off our staysail sheet and free the winch if we need it for the headsail. If we had this device last week, we wouldn’t have had our accident that resulted in the loss of our solar panel, two cockpit enclosure panels, and two winches handles. We are hoping to spend tomorrow on Windbird. We need to write a formal request for visiting the Lau Group here in Fiji, but before we can do that, we need to do a lot more research on anchorages there. Our request has to be fairly specific, so we really do need to know where we want to go and when. It will be interesting to see if we really get to spend the day doing research. Somehow, different demands come into play and we often don’t get to do what was planned. Maybe tomorrow will be different.

Day 22, Year 2: Work Day on Windbird
Date: Wednesday, May 16, 2007
Weather Today: Sunny Again
Location: Suva, Fiji

Today was another work day. Mark had high hopes of repairing the Sunbrella cover on the headsail, reinforcing the stitching on the dodger, and then sewing new velcro on our Dorade covers. He only completed number one on the list, however, as the Sailrite sewing machine just wasn’t behaving itself this morning. Of course, Mark was trying to sew through very, very thick layers of material, and I’m sure that had something to do with the misbehaving sewing machine. He was sitting out on the foredeck all day and he has a sunburn to prove it. At some point in the afternoon, I handed him a shirt to put on, but it was too little too late. He’ll probably just be brown in the morning, as he hardly ever really burns, but tonight he is a nice shade of crimson. After a frustrating day of sewing, around 3 PM we raised the repaired headsail. There is really nothing wrong with the sail, but the thread that was used to attach the Sunbrella cover was obviously not UV rated. Little by little, it has been disintegrating, and that is why Mark is having to repair. The same is true on the dodger. We reinforced the stitching on the bimini before leaving Whangarei, but we thought the dodger was fine. Well, it is not, so tomorrow or Friday we will have to remove it and do the repairs. For those of you who aren’t boaters, the dodger is what could be referred to as the windshield and canvas covering over the forward part of the cockpit and the bimini is the canvas covering over the back part of the cockpit. I spent my day doing more laundry (still doing things from the passage) and doing a thorough cleaning of the aft cabin. It was time to deep clean and then refresh all of the wood with lemon oil. Because of all of the louvered doors, cleaning the aft cabin takes a while.

So that was about all of the excitement on Windbird today. The weather has been absolutely beautiful ever since we arrived here, but I am expecting rain any time now. Suva is usually rainy, so I am really surprised that we have had five straight beautiful days. Not much else to report except that Ohani Kai left today and Moorea is leaving tomorrow. Since both boats are on the fast track home, we probably won’t see them out here again. We’ll just have to visit them in California once they are home.

Day 23, Year 2: Another Work Day on Windbird
Date: Thursday, May 17, 2007
Weather Today: Partly Sunny, Rain in the Evening
Location: Suva, Fiji

This is getting downright boring. We spent another day working on the boat. Mark worked on his sewing projects. Today he got the dodger seams reinforced and put new velcro on the Dorade box covers. He even repaired my $2.50 Jansport backpack that I bought in Panama. One of the shoulder straps was coming unstitched and now it looks like new. He also walked part way to town to pick up our stanchion that needed to be welded. This is the one that bent, almost broken, when the headsail sheet was flogging about on our way here. It doesn’t look quite like new, but it does look servicable, and that’s all that counts.

I helped Mark when he was working with the dodger. It is big and he needed help manhandling it while sewing. I also did more laundry. There are commercial boats of some sort on a mooring near us, and the workmen go in and out of town in small boats all day long. Every day they watch me hang out more laundry, so I’m sure they think we are the dirtiest cruisers they have ever seen. Actually everyone else took their laundry from the passage in to be done and paid about $50 Fiji. I do about four or five pieces everyday and am almost done–jeans, turtle necks, long underwear, winter pajamas, wool socks, and towels, towels , towels. Strange laundry for Fiji, but almost done. I also worked on cleaning the cockpit after Mark finished sewing, and started cleaning on the topsides of the boat.

We invited Donna and Jerry of Scott Free II and Colette and Jean-Pierre of Safina over for cocktail “hours” this evening. Donna and Jerry did have to hand steer for about five days of their passage from New Zealand, but they have recovered quickly. They are waiting for parts to fix their auto pilot. Jean-Pierre and Colette are waiting for a 12-month Visa for visiting Australia at the end of this cruising season, and we (and Scott Free II) are waiting to see if we get a permit to visit the Lau Group. Its looking more and more like that won’t really happen, but we are going to go ahead and try. Since we are all waiting for things, we will be here together for another week or so. The other two boats are from Canada and speak French. Maybe I’ll learn a little French while we are here.

It rained this evening and I heard on this morning’s net that a low is situated over Fiji. If the weather is rainy tomorrow, we might go into town to visit the Fiji Museum. Donna bought some beautiful fabric in town today, and Colette went shopping for a sari. Listening to them talk of their shopping excursions got me to thinking about doing a little shopping myself. Dress in Fiji is very conservative and women often need to wear long skirts. I have only one with me, so I’m thinking that I could create some more sewing projects for Mark. Someone’s got to keep him busy.

070517 Day 23 Viti Levu, Fiji–Mark the Seamtress

Day 24, Year 2: Exploring Suva
Date: Friday, May 18, 2007
Weather Today: Sunny Day; Windy, Cloudy Evening
Location: Suva, Fiji

After three days on the boat, I decided that it was time for me to go to shore and do a little walking today. But before leaving, I just had to do a “little” cleaning. We have a sun screen made of Texalena that hangs from the back curtains of the cockpit enclosure. It has been rolled up for the past few months and only unrolled once we reached Fiji. It, of course, had mildew stains, so one of my early morning chores was cleaning that. I made a mix of laundry detergent, white vinegar, and ammonia (this is my standard cleaning mix–a recipe I got from my mom) and wiped it on the front and back side of the screen. Like magic, it was clean. My mom would have been proud. I then got in the dinghy and cleaned the port side of the boat. I used the “mix” to wipe down the topsides, and then rinsed with yesterday’s laundry rinse water. The side of the boat was encrusted with salt, so this cleaning got rid of the salt. Now it was time to head to shore and walk to the Australian Embassy. It looked like a short walk on the map, but then the map didn’t show that the entire walk was uphill. Nevertheless, it was a beautiful day for a walk with great views of the harbor. We will be going to Australia at the end of this cruising season and thought we would get a head start on the Visa process, but what we found out was that they really want us to fill out the application online and not do it until just before we leave for Australia. So it was a nice walk and we will fill out the application in New Caledonia in the fall. From the Australian Embassy, we walked back down the mountain to downtown Suva. We walked past the Fiji Institute of Technology and a hospital. I surely hope that is not the only hospital in Suva as it is definitely in need of attention.

Once we were in downtown Suva, we headed to the internet cafe. We didn’t have our computer with us, but we both got online on the computers at the center. Mark checked email on our gmail account, checked on our bank account, and paid a couple of bills. I worked on our website, fixing margin errors in the last few logs and then went through all of the comments we have received since leaving New Zealand. Most of the 500 comments were spam, but there were a few great messages hidden amongst the ugly spam messages. We heard from Judith Stuart back in Concord. And yes, Judith, it is wonderful to have a man than sews. We heard from Doreen and Beth at New Hampshire Public Radio. There were a few messages from a new contact, RichC. I love the questions he asks as they help get at the detail that I sometimes forgot to include in the log. And then there were a number of messages from friends–Patsy Decker writing about Saddlebacks, Tom Porat telling us he was very glad we were out of the bad weather on our passage here, another new contact who has just bought a Tayana 42 (good choice), and an email from Heather Brie Hamilton. Heather, were you born in Alexandria, Virginia in 1975? That would be too much of a coincidence.

Tonight we had Lew and Ann of Serannity over for dinner. They are leaving on Monday for the US and won’t be back here until the middle of September. They will then be taking their boat to New Zealand. We have really enjoyed meeting them and hope that somehow we will meet again along the way. We have promised ourselves that we will take the weekend off and just kick back and relax, but then we might do a little island exploring. I think that counts as relaxation.

070518 Day 24 Viti Levu, Fiji–Exploring Suva

Day 25, Year 2: Time To Shift Into High Gear
Date: Saturday, May 19, 2007
Weather Today: Mostly Cloudy and Windy
Location: Suva, Fiji

Sometimes I think I’m married to a maniac and other times I’m sure of it. Mark decided to spend part of today hauling jerry cans of diesel fuel from the Yacht Club out here to the boat. When he gets in that dinghy by himself, he takes off like a bat out of you know where. He loves it and it makes me smile. But I’m glad I’m not with him! Today he zoomed to shore, filled the jerry cans, came back and filled the fuel tanks, and then took off again to get more fuel. Watching him is liking watching a flash of lightening. But the runs in and out were necessary as it is really impossible for a boat our size to actually get into the Yacht Club dock to get fuel. Having the “flash” run in and out is really the only way to do it. This is the first fuel we have taken on since Whangarei. We used the center tank and 26 gallons of the starboard tank. The last 26 gallons in the starboard tank were used in the last two days of the passage here. We were running the engine constantly, and much of that time it was at 28 RPM’s instead of the more moderate 1800 that we usually run. At 1800 RPM’s we use a half-gallon of fuel every hour. In the last 41 hours of our passage going at the high speed we still used only .6 gallons per hour. Not bad, actually. The cost of diesel here is $1.50 per liter which is $5.66 per gallon Fiji or $3.56 US. That means the last 41 hours of our passage cost us $74.76 US. That’s certainly more than sailing would have cost, but with those winds against us, we might still be out there. I guess we’re willing to spend the money in cases like that.

For those of you who know me, you know I love sunshine. So for me to say that I am learning to love cloudy is really saying something. It is so hot here when the sun is out that I am truly learning to appreciate the times when the clouds give a little buffer. Even though it was mostly cloudy today, we still had more than enough sunshine, and that prompted us to get out the sewing machine and fashion our new sun shades. Actually Mark did all of that work, so I shouldn’t say “we.” When he first made the sun shade for the cockpit back in Panama, he made it all as one piece. We could lay it over the dodger and bimini and then roll up the sides when we didn’t need it. But laying the Texalena over the Sunbrella covers was wearing the Sunbrella. Replacing those covers is very expensive, so now we just have side shades that hang independently. We can still roll them up when not in use, or take them down and store them when underway. My part of the job was cleaning the mildew stains from the plastic mesh. At some point, we had stored the shade in a plastic bag when it was not quite dry. Instead of light tan, the mildew stains made it look more light gray. But “the mix” fixed that. My sister-in-law, Sue, wrote today and said she uses the same cleaning mix of detergent, ammonia, and white vinegar that I use. But she often adds baking soda. I stayed with my basic formula and it did its magic, but next time I might add the baking soda just to watch the mixture bubble.

After filling the diesel tanks and hanging the new sun shades, we got to work on researching our Fiji travel itinerary. Somehow we have put this off, but an email from Mark’s brother Steve saying that he thinks he can come visit us here in Fiji got us moving. We need to let him know when we will be where, and since we haven’t figured that out, the time had come. We also need to get a letter to Lau Group Provincial Office on Monday or Tuesday declaring our intentions to visit there and when. We have really been taking it easy since we got here. We have done lots of boat projects, but we really haven’t been in high gear. Our research today showed us that we need to shift gears. Otherwise, we will be in Fiji for the whole cruising season. That would probably be fine, but we really want to see Vanuatu, so we are now moving. There is so much to see here and we need to get that itinerary done. So I’ll end this log here and get back to the travel and cruising guides. Maybe by tomorrow evening, we’ll actually have a sail plan together.

Day 26, Year 2: Exploring the South Coast of Viti Levu
Date: Sunday, May 20, 2007
Weather Today: Rainy Day on the South Coast
Location: Suva, Fiji

We finally had a real Suva rainy day. When it rains it pours, but it only rains for short periods. It stops and then it comes back again. We had made arrangements with Donna and Jerry on Scott Free II to go exploring today. We thought we had timed it just right to pick them up in our dinghy and head to shore between rains. But we missed the mark. Just as we got to Scott Free II, the rain came pouring down. We put up umbrellas and must have been quite a site motoring to the Yacht Club with four umbrellas flying in the wind. Of course the rain stopped as soon as we got to shore, and we then took a taxi to town to the bus station. We had decided to take a bus along the southern shore of this island, Viti Levu, to a place called Pacific Harbour. We picked that place only because it was about an hour from here and on our first bus excursion, we didn’t want to go too far in case we had trouble getting back.

It continued to rain off and on all day, but we enjoyed the bus ride and the scenery. The vegetation here is unbelievably lush. The soil is red and it makes a great contrast with the various shades of green. As you leave Suva, the next town is Lami. It is small compared to Suva, and is more like a suburb of the city. After that, there are no towns of any size, only small villages until you get to the small but busy little town of Navua. This town is on the Navua River is only about 40 kilometers from Suva. The bus rides takes an hour, however, as the road is narrow and goes up and down some hills. As we rode to the west, the lowlands were on our left and the highlands were on our right. Near Navua, we came into an area of cattle grazing and dairy farms. Then we got off the bus in Pacific Harbour. There was not much there, but we walked to what is called the Arts Village for lunch at the Oasis Restaurant. There were a few resorts in this town and a view of Beqa Island offshore. Beqa is the home of the Fijiian fire walkers, and we plan to go there as we leave Suva. Lunch was nothing to write home about, but we had a good time and enjoyed the day. The ride home seems much faster than the ride out and the bus driver even had a video playing for passengers to watch. Interesting.

We spent the rest of the afternoon back on Windbird doing trip planning and then went back to the Yacht Club for dinner with Ann and Lew of Serranity. They are leaving for the US tomorrow, so this was a farewell dinner for them. Colette and Jean-Pierre of Safina and Donna and Jerry of Scott Free II were also there. The restaurant at the Yacht Club is run by a Chinese family that has been here in Fiji for about 40 years. They previously had a take-out business, but they have made a great transition into the restaurant business. The food is moderately priced and very good. We enjoyed dinner and talked about the things cruisers talk about–how to clean your alternator, how to clean your refrigerator condensor coils, how to repair a dinghy, where to go to get your life raft repacked, and on and on. We also talked a little about cruising in Fiji. None of us has a definite plan yet, but we are getting there. More detail about that tomorrow.

070520 Day 26 Viti Levu, Fiji–South Coast